"Ghestalian Scum!" one of the young men in the
crowd shouted at their group as they made their way up the staircase.
"Ignore them," Locke muttered under his breath,
"they're not really good at this whole... change thing."
"I probably signed the orders that burned his village
down..." she responded, in a quiet voice as they reached the landing
above.
"Stop that!" he snapped back, turning to her,
"That was a different life. A different you."
"But was it really?" she retorted, her voice
rising with her words, "a different me? Isn't that why I'm here? Because
of who I am, what I know?"
Locke was ready to snap back, but she held up her hand and
chuckled darkly before continuing, "I still wear the armor of a Ghestalian
general, and do you know why?" she asked him.
"We're not really that well equipped here," he
muttered, "so it's not like you've got a lot of options for good armor
just lying around."
"True," she replied, "but that's not it. I
wear it to remind me... no. To remind everyone, who I was."
"So what, you get off on reminding everyone-"
She backhanded him before he could finish his statement, and
he stumbled back an angry retort ready to erupt, but she cut in first,
"Don't you dare accuse me of enjoying this."
He tightened his jaw, but did not respond, his hand
clenching and unclenching in a fist betraying his anger.
"May you never have cause to understand how few words
it takes to end hundreds of lives," she told him, her anger cooling as she
continued, "how a simple dismissive wave of your hand," she
demonstrated, "can take a father from his family, or a family from its
father."
He said nothing, though some of the tension left him and she
continued, "I will never escape what I've done. If we succeed in stopping
the Empire, that will not somehow absolve me of my sins. I wear this armor to
remind me, and everyone, who our enemy is."
Finished, she strode past him, continuing their climb up the
stairwell... and Locke followed with a sigh, speaking under his breath,
"But when are you going to realize that you're not the
enemy anymore..."
